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Single’s Day sales through Alibaba

A single company, called the Alibaba Group, in a single day, called Single’s Day, sold almost ten billion US dollars worth of items! The company shipped 278 million orders that day. That’s like shipping an order to every single person in all of the United Kingdom as well as all of Brazil!

Alibaba is a Chinese online and mobile commerce company that has a bunch of Internet-based businesses. Amongst other things, the company allows people to purchase and sell products online or using their mobile phones (like the American company Amazon and the Indian company Flipkart). It was launched in 1999 by Jack Ma (image), currently the richest man in China.

Single’s Day is celebrated in China every November 11 (11/11 – all ones for singles). It is a holiday that was created in the 1990s by Chinese university students for people who were not married or didn’t have a partner. People buy things for themselves on this day (as opposed to Valentine’s Day, celebrated on February 14, when people buy gifts for their loved ones).

Alibaba has helped make Single’s Day the world’s biggest online shopping day. Many companies that sell products on Alibaba offer deep discounts and great promotions luring customers to come shop on Single’s Day.

Another huge online shopping day is in the United States called “Cyber Monday”. It is held on the Monday after the American holiday called Thanksgiving in November. Last year on Cyber Monday, Americans spent over US$2 billion. Cyber Monday has become a shopping day in some other countries as well such as Canada and the United Kingdom.